cost the war against drugs is inflicting on the other side of the border. >> warner: monterrey has long considered itself a special place, protected by its mountains and its economic might. but no longer. whether monterrey can tame the >> brown: a tumultuous time at a top public university. we'll look at the national implications. >> ifill: we remember nora ephron, who used humor and biting prose to capture the spirit of our changing times in movies, books and essays for more than 40 years. that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> this is the at&t network-- a living, breathing intelligence bringing people together to bring new ideas to life. >> look, it's so simple. >> in a year, the bright minds from inside and outside the company come together to work on an idea. adding to it from the road, improving it in the cloud, all in real time. >> good idea. >> it's the at&t network. providing new ways to work together, so business works better. these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: a firestorm raged in the colorado countryside today, after exploding across containment lines near colorado springs. firefighters struggled to keep up and homeowners scrambled to get out of the way. "newshour" correspondent tom bearden begins our coverage. >> reporter: the flames swallowed entire neighborhoods on the edge of colorado springs overnight. the mayor's office said dozens of homes were destroyed. >> visibility is down to near zero in northern parts of colorado springs. >> reporter: the waldo canyon fire seemed to flare out of control in the blink of an eye when the winds picked up unexpectedly. >> these winds started whipping up to about 65 miles per hour. that was not in the plan. >> this is tough, and we're going to and we know it's going to be tough and we're not going to back away and quit. >> reporter: some 32,000 people were ordered to evacuate and fast, including hundreds living on the u.s. air force academy campus. they grabbed precious possessions on the fly. >> so scared. i don't want to lose my home. >> it's upsetting to see our state on fire. >> flames were coming down the hill onto the road and people were driving up on the median and stuff. so, it was nuts. >> reporter: shelters were set up, offering food, water and a place to sleep. there was even room for household pets. >> i'm kind of numb at the moment. i think the kids are handling it better than i am. i'm a little worried about where we're going to stay tonight and how we're going to get things done. the fire was less than a miles from my house and the flames were huge and pretty scary when you have three kids and all your pets. >> reporter: in fact, one in four homes in colorado lies in a fire risk zone and 100,000 people have moved into fire risk zones in the last decade. that left a lot of people living on the edge, as the fire roared across 24 square miles. but officials insisted they do have the manpower to cope. if you have all those resources and boots on the ground, how did you lose houses last night? >> mother nature just decided move the fire the way she wanted to go. and when you have mother nature in that kind of situation, plus those three factors that affect fire behavior: fuel, topography and weather, when those three are in alignment, there's nothing anyone can do. >> reporter: and mother nature was set to pose fresh challenges. >> we expect the development of thunderstorms over the fire this afternoon. thunderstorms present a unique problem for us in that the wind can come in any direction from those at any time with pretty strong gusts. so we do expect all of our lines to be challenged again today. >> reporter: another challenge is the searing heat. colorado is in the midst of a seemingly unending heat wave that's seen temperatures above in the mid-90's today. and officials say the thick haze blanketing colorado springs isn't expected to disappear anytime soon. yet another blaze-- the flagstaff fire-- crept closer to boulder, colorado after lightning ignited brush yesterday. >> the clouds rolled through and a couple of lightning bolts hit the ground and we saw one come hit the flatirons and smoke billowed out right afterwards. >> reporter: the fire prompted mandatory evacuations in boulder county, and warnings in the city of boulder. >> we packed things that we thought were mementos, photographs. >> reporter: military c-130's dropped fire retardant on the flames and residents even hired private outfits to protect their homes. >> we're pretreating the vegetation behind both homes very significantly which will hold up for several hours. >> reporter: there was a spot of good news farther north: the 136 square-mile high park fire near fort collins is now 65% contained. >> we use the engines to wet down the fuels and then we have to have firefighters turn that soil over and make sure all the live material is out, extinguished. a lot of folks don't realize the work that has to go into-- if a gust of wind comes up there's nothing hot on the edge to blow across the line. >> reporter: in fact, crews that had been fighting the high park fire drove south today, as reinforcements against the waldo canyon fire. >> ifill: rain began falling as the day wore on, but not yet enough to aid those firefighters. the white house announced today president obama will travel to colorado to tour the fire scene this friday. for more on where things stand, i spoke a short time ago with colorado governor john hickenlooper. governor hickenlooper, thank you for joining us. can you give us a sense of how much worse this devastation is today than it was this time yesterday? >> well, you know, we've got this terrible drought, and we've been fighting a number of fires around colorado-- again, relatively speaking, a tiny part of the state but it seems like there's been a lot of fires. and we knew we had this fire started on saturday just to the west of colorado prescription. but it was over on the other side of the mountain. late yesterday afternoon, we had those, you know, a front move through with high winds, what they call a column collapse, and literally in a matter of hours the fire just blew past everything that had been done over-- i mean, nothing could have stopped it. 60, 70-mile-per-hour gustes of winds pushed it through the trees and into the the residential subdivisions at a pace-- again, the firefighters were incredible but nothing could have stopped this fire. >> ifill: but you're still talking about 32,000 people evacuated. do you have any way of knowing whether people are obeying these evacuation orders, and where are they going? >> oh, they are definitely obeying the evacuation orders. i mean, if you saw the-- some of the foot annual of the fire, it was very intense. we flew a helicopter up yesterday to-- from denver-- we flew in to get down to the scene, we flew over the fire, and it looked like some sort of a-- you know, extreme movie set. just fire everywhere, houses willy-nilly. i don't think anyone is trying to stay if their home and defend-- some people are very frustrated being forced to evacuate and worrying about their homes. most are staying with friends, and we have-- the red cross has done an incredible job of setting up shelters, but the vast majority of people are staying with friends and helping each other which is how colorado and how america has always tell the with these kinds of things. >> ifill: and how has the air force academy been affected by this? we know the fire has at least been along the borders. have there been evacuations there and is this a federal, state, or county responsibility? >> we evacuated the air force academy yesterday. the fire was coming so fast-- and this was even before it blew up. so we worked out last night what we call a dual-status command, a way where the governor and president can coordinate effort. we have a dual-status commander, a guy named pete burn, who san air force national guard representative. and so he operates as the liaison soe can take federal safeties soldiers, bulldozers, helicopters-- whatever tool we can to bring to this fire and coordinate it so we don't get into each other's ways with the national guard and the civilian efforts and the u.s. forest service efforts. >> ifill: i'm sorry, go ahead. >> that's full tilt. we stood up that today. i talked to-- i mean, we went all the way through the command. >> ifill: i know you talked to the president about it. governor, you had pretty tough words yesterday for the possibility that arsonists may have had something to do with spreading this fire. what is your sense if that is so or whether it's lightning strikes or other sparks here? >> well, we don't have pure evidence, but certainly there have been a lot of rumors and stories and we want to make sure we don't jump to conclusions. we want to make sure we are judicious and cautious in our approach. just the very thought that somebody would be out there trying to cause a fire. an arsonist who for some strange kick gets joy out of this, i want to make clear that we'd throw the book at them. in aggravate the arson you can get up to 48 years inicology col. and in-- in colorado. in conditions like this where it's so dry, and just to think about putting people at risk like that i think drives everybody crazy. it makes your blood boil. >> ifill: in the meantime you can only hope the weather turns to your advantage. john hickenlooper, thank you very much. >> we appreciate it. and we appreciate the federal government-- the president did call today. we had secretary nepal tano. we had so much support from all over the country. governor deval patrick called this morning from massachusetts. it does make you appreciate what america is. >> ifill: thanks so much. >> you bet. >> brown: still to come on the "newshour": deal-making on capitol hill; the impact of the mexican drug war and remembering nora ephron but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: the remnants of tropical storm debby moved across northern florida today, heading into the atlantic ocean. the storm's watery slog from the gulf of mexico left widespread flooding in coastal and inland communities. more than two feet of rain fell in some places. the storm is now just a tropical depression. it has been blamed for at least three deaths. two long-time fixtures in congress turned back primary challenges on tuesday. in utah, republican senator orrin hatch easily defeated a tea party challenger in his bid for a seventh term. and in new york city, democratic congressman charlie rangel won his primary battle, aiming for a 22nd term. he had been censured by the house 18 months ago for failing to pay taxes. >> my community has rallied behind me when some of the most severe charges have been made against me in the past. there's so much that has to be done in this country, in my community, and i'm just glad my community has faith and confidence in me doing it. >> sreenivasan: but in oklahoma, five-term republican congressman john sullivan lost his race with a tea party-backed opponent. he is the fourth incumbent congressman to lose in a primary so far this year. britain's queen elizabeth and martin mcguiness-- former head of the irish republican army-- shared a highly symbolic handshake today. they marked the moment of reconciliation in northern ireland after decades of violence. it is believed mcguiness commanded the i.r.a. when the group killed the queen's cousin lord mountbatten in 1979. northern ireland finally achieved a peace agreement in 1998 and the i.r.a. renounced violence in 2005. stockton, california is soon to be the largest u.s. city to file for federal bankruptcy protection. the city council began the procedural work last night, setting the stage for a filing by friday. stockton faces a $26 million budget shortfall. so far, efforts to work out deals with the city's creditors have failed. on wall street today, stocks surged ahead after upbeat reports about home sales, factory orders and business investment. the dow jones industrial average gained 92 points to close at 12,627. the nasdaq rose 21 points to close at 2,875. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jeff. >> brown: faced with a pair of weekend deadlines, congressional leaders neared a resolution today on disagreements over student loan interest rates and transportation funding. judy woodruff has the story. >> woodruff: at the capitol this morning, leaders from both parties were sounding hopeful. the senate's democratic majority leader harry reid opened the day's business. >> i am cautiously optimistic that we can end this week tomorrow even with a little bit of luck, but we may not be able to, we have to see what happens the next 24 hours which will be key. >> woodruff: on the house side, republican speaker john boehner echoed that sentiment. >> we're ming, i think towards an agreement on a transportation bill that will also include a one-year fix on the student loan rate increase scheduled to go in effect by the first. a lot of work has gone into this. it's not finished yet. >> woodruff: later came word of a tentative house-senate deal. it would prevent the interest rate on federally backed student loans from doubling to 6.8% as of sunday, july first. it would affect 7.4 million students. the measure would be attached to a two-year extension of transportation funding. it was reported that republicans dropped demands for immediate action on building the keystone oil pipeline from canada to the gulf of mexico. the president has delayed the project, for further environmental study. joining us now to help us understand what's next is todd zwillich of "the takeaway" from public radio international and wnyc. welcome back. >> good to be with you, judy. >> so this is a bulletin. the two parties may be reaching an agreement on something. >> on two things, fact, that are both expiring, and the transportation bill, a bona fide jobs bill. it's amazing what congress can accomplish when things are expiring with & when it's time fair vacation. >> woodruff: democrats have been saying this is a jobs bill. have republicans finally agreed with that or is there another rationale? >> i think the republicans agreed it was a jobs bill. everything gets stamped a jobs bill in this economy in congress. we have a tax cut, that's a jobs bill. we have another bill over here, that's a jobs bill. the highway bill, the transportation bill really is a jobs bill. it's a bona fide jobs bill. money goes directly to states. they spend it on federal highway projects, hire workers. the construction industry is it really hurting. face jobs bill. what has really been remarkable about the bill, the bona fide jobs bill throughout the recent history of congress has always had bipartisan buy-in. every district has a stake. every member has a stake. the unions like it, the chamber of commerce likes it, the national association of manufacturers-- the big hit ears they all like it. they all liked it this time, too, but again we have talked all year about the conservative republican house, the unusually conservative tea party and freshmen and conservative republican house who aren't playing the normal ballgames. the senate passed its highway bill with 74 votes, broad bipartisan consensus and it was the house that could never get it together and they never passed a bill. >> gord: the house leadership wasn't able until now to get the conservatives on board. >> they may not be on board. they're going to have to approve this conference report if and when it comes. we'll see how many of the conservatives will vote for it. the democrats will vote for it. a large chunk of joh boehner's republicans will vote for it, but not all of them. and we'll see in the end without an agreement with the keystone pipeline, as you said in the piece, this is not included. the republicans gave in on it. >> woodruff: why did they give in on it? >> they say they gave in, because the democrats' price to include keystone was more government spending. really, what happened in this case was that without passing a bill of their own, the house republicans didn't have a great deal of leverage with the senate, which, again, passed with 74 votes, republicans and democrats together, the senate had a great deal more leverage in this negotiation. the senate didn't want to it. the house republican leaders did, and ultimately had to deal it away in order to get a bill. >> woodruff: meanwhile, on the student loans the interest rates will not double. >> for a year. >> woodruff: how did that come together? >> that came together with an expiring deadline. the republicans have been frustrated over this because they have been making offer upon offer upon offer of how to pay for it. it's a relatively small bill. it's $6 billion over a year. it's not that much. the republicans have been offering pay-fors. democrats have been balking, and republicans claim the democrats are milking this. they like to call it obstructionist, the president is running against congress, so why not milk it. >> woodruff: marriage republicans in the house poised to make history tomorrow by holding a member of the president's cabinet in contempt. tell us where that stands. >> that stands on the precipice of a vote tomorrow. there is a congressional picnic, judy, this evening on the lawn of the white house, traditional picnic. eric holder is is attendin atted won't that be a little awkward. tomorrow they are scheduled for the first time to hold a member of the cabinet in contempt. that vote is going forward. there are no signs that it will abate. there were some last-minute negotiations yesterday between white house officials and representatives of the house republican leadership trying to make some last-minute deals on documents related to this fast and furious gun walking program that the a.t.f. was following and botched last year that resulted in the death of a border agent. >> woodruff: and you were just saying to me, just quickly, todd, a minute ago, at this point, republicans in the house say they do not have any evidence that the attorney general agreed. >> investigations chairman darrell isis said that. they have no evidence nor do they allege that eric holder knew about the operation fast and furious. the contempt is because holder refused to comply with a subpoena relating from last year, failure to produce documents. interestingly, that hasn't stopped the national rifle association from saying they're going to score this vote and keep track of which members vote for it or against it. >> woodruff: which will of course affect what some democrats do. >> highly political pgh >> naoko: and all happening on the day the supreme court will come out with pivotal health care rulings. and you were saying the timing of this will mean what? the house leadership has done this on purpose. >> they say this is a matter of scheduling. they hadn't scheduled this, even when we weren't sure if the ruling was going to come out on monday. the ruling tomorrow on the affordable care act is a banner election issue. it will be the biggest political story of the summer, if the not the year until the election itself. you can call it coincidence our not, but the contempt vote against eric holder, which some conservatives want will be part of the same news day and you can call that buried if you want to. we will be talking more about health care tomorrow than an unpress departmented contempt vote against the attorney general. >> woodruff: todd zwillich of the take, thanks very much. >> ifill: next tonight, the devastating impact of ongoing drug violence in mexico. margaret warner filed this story 120 miles from the texas border in the state of nuevo leon, and its capital, monterrey. >> reporter: jaime rodriguez is driving from monterrey to his nearby suburban town in a jeep with special upgrades: bulletproof glass, heavy armor and two backup s.u.v.s with his well-armed chavos-- his guys. its no wonder. drug cartel gunmen tried to assassinate him twice last year. >> here they hid and fire, bang bang, bang. one died here, i was there, i saw one of my bodyguards get shot. it was like a battlefield. >> reporter: rodriguez became mayor of the fast-growing town of garcia three years ago, vowing to confront the zeta drug cartel that had taken over his town. qtrthe entire police force was in cahoots with the narcos and the cartels. city administrators collaborated, too. the entire city was under siege. >> reporter: the gangs hit first, three days after he took office, killing his personal security chief. rodriguez struck back. >> ( translated ): i decided to fire all the police, and we did it. we closed 250 stores where drugs were being sold. i went after the top leadership of the zetas living here, like el piojo. >> reporter: that kind of toughness won him the nickname "el bronco", celebrated in song, videos and games like "el bronco, the exterminator." but myth-making can't match the brutal statistics. homicides in his state of nuevo leon, with mexico's wealthiest city, monterrey, skyrocketed six-fold in three years, from under 300 in 2009 to nearly 1800 last year. kidnapping, robbery and extortion kept pace. >> monterrey has long considered itself a special place, protected by its mountains and its economic might. but no longer. whether monterrey can tame the plague of drug violence here will have profound consequences for this city and for mexico itself. >> i say all the time that we were like in disneyland here; nothing happened. >> reporter: we met jorge domene, nuevo leon's security spokesman, at a new coordination center for federal, state, local and military anti-cartel operations. >> we can watch in real time all the patrols with the g.p.s. we can be hearing the conversation that's real time and everything is recorded. >> reporter: he blames the explosion of violence on two gangs-- the zetas and the gulf cartel-- battling over drug routes into the u.s. and a ballooning drug market within mexico. the principal casualty, peace of mind. bar owner sergio trevino runs la tumba in monterrey's once- buzzing bar district. >> ( translated ): there used to be 90 places that offered all types of music, food; cafes. now they're only about eight places left. >> reporter: sugar mill baron alberto santos says the social toll is huge. >> you see military patrols with armed people. that's shocking. we are living in the middle of a war. >> reporter: the army arrived in november 2010, but last august brought a grisly turning point-- the first wholesale massacre inside the city limits. a local casino was torched, killing 52 people trapped inside, ignited by the zetas, police said, in an extortion dispute. patricia saenz can't get over her husband's death. >> ( translated ): they didn't just end my husband's life, but mine and my children's as well. we are like zombies at home. >> reporter: francisco tamayo, who lost his wife, said despite a few arrests, there's been no justice. >> when it comes to the responsibility, the owners, the authorities, the government have not been present. >> reporter: yet samara ferez, whose son died, was afraid to say who she thought did it. >> ( translated ): if i tell you on an international network the name of the criminal organization, it's going to cost me my life. >> reporter: there's one borough of greater monterrey where the gangs don't roam: a wealthy enclave called san pedro. insurance man alejandro alvarez and his wife nancy were headed home with their young sons. peaceful place, is it? >> yes, it is. it always has been, and the people that live here know that san pedro is very different. >> different in large part >> reporter: different in large part because of another tough- guy mayor: mauricio fernandez. with a town the size of el broncos, he collects six times the tax revenues. he's hired more police per capita than anyplace else in mexico. he denies he cut a deal with the cartels to ensure peace. >> that's absurd. are so many organizations in organized crime that you want to deal with one, you make that mistake, then another one will try to come and compete with you for that position. >> instead, fernandez >> reporter: instead, fernandez relies on his own intelligence unit and makes gangsters an offer they can't refuse. >> i have many ways to get rid of them. but when you confront a person and you tell, you belong to the organized crime, and you better go or we don't know what is going to happen to you, they leave. so it's intimidation. it works. >> reporter: his ultimate enforcer: the army. >> if you have the army on your side, you don't need any bad guys like that to do a really dirty job. >> reporter: nuevo leon state is trying to replace corrupt cops, too. with funding from city business interests, it's recruiting a new fuerza civil of uncorrupted cops with such high salaries and benefits, that their families have a lot to lose if they go bad. >> we had made great leaps in human rights, and under the umbrella of the drug war, human rights are being thrown down the drain. >> reporter: mexico city businessman armando santacruz helped found mexico united against crime 15 years ago, after a kidnapper known as the murdered an acquaintances son. >> some parts of society believe that, well, we're dealing with criminals, we're not dealing with artists here so we cannot treat them with kid gloves and that's a totally mistaken idea. >> reporter: sister consuelo >> there is a fight between among the narco-traffic and state, but also what we the citizens suffer a lot is the violence generated by the state. >> reporter: sister consuelo morales is an advocate for the so-called disappeared in monterrey, like tens of her group estimates some 40% were taken by police or military for questioning, torture or summary execution. >> they are taking away people that have nothing to do with this criminal situation. >> reporter: people like jehu sepulveda who got nabbed in san pedro 18 months ago for driving without proper documents. his wife, mother and sister insist he wasn't tied to crime or the drug trade. all they know for sure is he was taken to a local jail. >> ( translated ): a uniform policeman told my husband's boss he'd been taken away by the marines, so then we went to the marines and they treated us badly. they said, "no, we have never seen your husband." >> ( translated ): we just want some answers, that my son is still alive. >> reporter: sister consuelos push for answers for such families has led to the arrests of more than a dozen people, including police and government officials. have there been threats against you? >> oh, yes. in mexico to work on human rights is a risk but now because of the violence that we live here, violence from the authority, violence from the narco traffic, it's worse, no? >> reporter: the gruesome violence on the narco side mass shoot-ups and mutilated bodies has shocked mexico's conscience. and debate on how to end it is venturing beyond the long-term goals of better schools, courts and less corruption. two once-fringe ideas are gaining traction. the military assault on traffickers should be re- focused, to hammer the violent cartels, says armando santacruz. >> the priority should be to reduce the violence and keep the population safe. if getting a drug lord along the way is needed for that, good. if it's not, well too bad and if some other countries get made, get mad, well, i'm really sorry. >> reporter: alberto santos and other civic leaders have taken out ads urging debate on an even more radical idea, legalizing drug use throughout mexico. >> the only origin of the problem is the black market with drugs. that's a huge business. better police will not solve the problem of violence related to drugs. it's a big medical problem and it should be addressed as a medical problem. >> reporter: for now, though, intimidated mexicans have to count on local leaders to tough it out. though el bronco's term ends later this year, he says he'll continue the fight. >> ( translated ): death and i have become friends. god put me here. he has saved my life two times. i'm never going to leave garcia, even if they kill me. i'm no longer afraid. >> reporter: sadly, most mexicans can't say the same. >> ifill: earlier today, margaret hosted a live twitter chat about mexico's drug war. you can view a recap of that conversation on our website. in her next story, she profiles a photographer who captures the gritty reality of day to day life in juarez. >> brown: now, a school founded by thomas jefferson is rocked by the school's roots go back to founder thomas jefferson. >> mr. >> with high honor and great pleasure, yes. >> brown: it was a dramatic end to what had become a painful spectacle, as the governing board of the university of virginia voted tuesday to re- instate president teresa sullivan. the move came 16 days after the same board had ousted sullivan-- leading to strong protests by faculty, students and others around the state. the precise reasons for the board's move were never clear, but were said to involve differences over how fast the university should move in reonse to budget pressures and changing technology. yesterday, sullivan called all concerned to come together. >> i do not ask that we sweep any differences under a rug, but rather that we engage one another in candor and respect. all of us seek only one thing: what is best for our university. >> brown: in fact, while the specifics differ, public institutions across the country are facing similar pressures and problems, including slashes in state funding and increasing tuition rates. the university of california system, for example, was hit with state cutbacks in the last year totaling $750 million. u.c. davis chancellor linda katehi spoke to the "newshour" about the impact. >> we are making higher education more of a private good. we are asking the individual families and the individual students to pay for their own education. the time when the state was the main contributor to the cost of higher education is gone. and i don't necessarily see us going back to that. >> brown: even with teresa sullivan holding her job at virginia, all in all, it's been a rough year for leaders of public universities. the universities of illinois, wisconsin and oregon have all seen top level changes in the past 12 months. and we pick up on parts of this story now, with gordon gee, president of ohio state university. george cohen is professor of law at the university of virginia law school and current chairman of the school's faculty senate. and anne neal is president of the american council of trustees and alumni, an independent, non- profit organization that tracks issues in higher education. and i should say for the record before we begin that i am a tuition-paying parent of a university of virginia student. that out of the way, gordon gee, i'll start with you. i want to come to you first as a university president watching this from afar. can you tellinous brief what you take from what happened at virginia? what does it speak to for wherevers like-- universities like yourself? >> obviously these are pressure times for universities and i think this is evidence of the fact that there are a lot of changes taking place, external to the universities, internal to the universities, and how one aligns that between boards, faculties, staff, student, alumni, and friends. this is an early example of a number of the kind of pressures i think we're going to face. this is a fundamental resetting of the american economic system, as you well know. >> brown: anne neal, you told us earlier you generally were supportive of the board at virginia. what do you think is the most important factor now facing public universities? what is the problem, exactly? >> well, i want to say, first, clearly the process was deplorable in terms of its lack of transparency, but i do think it's very important that we not let the process eclipt the more important issue, really bthe future of public higher education. and i think what we've learned in the university of virginia situation-- and we can look at california and institutions across the country-- is that we really are at a defining moment for public higher education. and i would suggest that if public higher education continues on the current course that it is, in fact, on a collision course. one of the things that we've noted in our various studies is today we spend two times the average of any industrialized nation on higher ed, but our results are far worse. we're graduating less than 60% in six years. a study called academically adrift, looked at the learning gains of college student across the country and found that 45% didn't learn or had very minimal cognitive gain in the first two years. as you know, as a tuition-paying parent, tuitions have gone up and been skyrocketing for decades and i think finally have reached a point where colleges and universities are beginning to realize-- and thank you, board of the university of virginia for pring bringing this to the fore-- that we've got to start looking at different ways of doing what we're doing. >> brown: i want to bring george cohen in. upper opposed to the board's original ouster of the president there. picking up on what you just heard, do you think everyone buys in, first, to the need for a new model, the sense that things aren't working, a change is need eded? >> i think everyone agrees there are a number of problems facing universityes, and the faculties that i've talked to are all understanding of that, and ready to move forward and work cooperatively toward change. i think what happened at the university of virginia was we felt that we had a president who was able to work with faculty and was going to move us toward change, and the board made this sudden decision without can thincanconsulting anyone, reall, including faculty. what we want is a voice at the table, and we want to be able to contribute positively to constructive solutions to the problems we know we all face. >> brown: there was, professor cohen, staying with you for a moment, there was this question of incremental versus rapid change. from where you sit, does it feel like rapid change is possible of the kind that we just heard, for example, called for by miss neal? >> i think there are a number of problems that need to be dealt with in a number of different ways. there is no simple solution to a lot of these things. so for some problems, incremental change may be what's called for. for other problems, there may be room for some kind of rapid change. but i think it's important to note that-- i don't see anything of the kind of emergency where there can't be a full and open discussion and debate about the things that need to be done, where you can include a variety of experts and different views. we have lots of expertise, for example, on the faculty at the university of virginia, including experts on things like online education, which has been done in a lot of different aspects-- areas of the university for a number of years. and we ought to build on that expertise and bring these people in to help create solutions. >> brown: well, let me ask gordon gee. one of the issues here that's always raised is should universities -- especially public ones-- be run more like businesses, just more on a sort of corporate model? you can see yourself-- how do you see yourself? are you a c.e.o. of a major corporation, or what would that mean? >> no, you know, the issue for universities is the fact that we are now in a moment in time in which we're really going to have to think very aggressively about change. at the same time, we have to understand that our business is the business of ideas. and so ideas the are sometimes messy. sometimes they're difficult to put your arms around. in my view, what we're about is returning to the core. and my own instance, in my own institution, we are focusing on teaching and learning and research and ideas and faculty, staff, and students, and 11 million ohioans if & if what we're doing at the university is not central to that core we will do something differently. we privatized our parking, as an example, giving us the ability to be able to invest, clearly, in the central core of the institution. often i hear the notion about we're privatizing, there are, corporatizing. that's nonsense. what we're about is really developing a new strategy for the funding and the structure and the dynamics of higher education. you can do it in an inclusive manner but you have to move forward. there's a real urgency about what we need to do in higher education. >> brown: anne neal, another thing that comes up is the question of dropping departments or dropping parts of what the academy, various universities do, unsuccessful or unproductive ones, however one would define that. would you advocate looking at that as things that universities need to do? >> well, i think we're going to have to look very broadly at a whole range of activities on our college campuses. effective and efficient use of our academy focused on academic excellence doesn't take a corporate radar to do it. and i think this is in fact what has been raised very effectively at the university of virginia that there have been many, many topics that, quite frankly, haven't been on the table. look at the budget, questions of faculty teaching lodes -- can they teach more and go back to the standards of the 1980s, where they taught nearly one more than they do now. we find ways to reduce administrative bloat which has ramped up at institutions elsewhere. we looked at the university of virginia and we found there were 71 classes where there were 10 or fewer graduates. and these are the kinds of issues, the kinds of questions that should be on the table. i tonight think we necessarily need to dictate the outcome, but the fact is, unless bee have that robust discussion and now, it really will be a model of ever-adding, ever-adding, that we just simply can't deal with anymore. i think it's interesting since the g.i. bill it really has been a growth model. and clayton cristiensen in his book "innovative university" has talked very much to trusteeeesed other communities that the growth boddle doesn't work and here is an opportunity for universities to really focus powhat they do well. >> brown: let me ask george cohen to react what he just heard, especially using a business model, making hard choices? >> i agree that there are hard choices that need to be made. i think we need to keep in mind, also, the value of a liberal arts education which is that if you have people trained to reason well, write well, speak well, do effective research, we don't know where the jobs of the future are going to be. and we need to be flexible in the way we educate our students because we don't know which languages will be the most important ones in 20 years, which technologies will be the most important ones. you need people who are able to adapt and respond to changing circumstances. and there is a value in being able to offer a portfolio of courses and subjects that can help students be trained to be adaptive. >> announcer: >> brown: gordon gee, do you want to weigh in on this? let me ask gordon gee to weigh in on this. >> obviously, i think the process of change eye describe american universities this way-- i think we're elephants. i think we have to become ballerinas or else we're going to become dinosaurs. and we have to take charge of our own ability to be able to make those changes. otherwise they'll be imposed from other places. we have to work collectively, we have to work with our boards but we soto move forward because we have no choice. the american university is not broken. we still are at the pinnacle of higher education worldwide but we also are greatly threatened if we do not make the kinds of changes i believe are necessary in order to be successful. >> brown: we are going to have to leave it there, a very interesting subject which we will return to. anne neal, george cohen, gordon gee, thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: finally tonight, remembering the remarkable career of nora ephron. essayist and humorist, best- selling author, movie director. nora ephron became all three in fields where few women soared as so high. born in 1941 to screenwriting parents, she began her career as a journalist in new york. in short order, she gained notice for biting humor and a gift for turning a phrase. in essay collections-- "i feel bad about my neck" and "i remember nothing"-- she expounded on everything from divorce, to aging, to failure. by the early '80s, ephron-- who was born and still lived on manhattan's upper west side-- had turned to screenwriting. she explained to pbs' charlie rose in 2010. >> i think there was a certain moment i realized i had to make movies in order to make enough money to live as a writer in new york city and not have to move to some... some place like new jersey. >> there's nothing wrong with living in new jersey. >> i'm just saying you don't live there and i don't live there. >> that's true. >> it would have been okay but it wasn't what i had in mind. >> ifill: her first movie was "silkwood", in 1983, directed by mike nichols and starring meryl streep. >> you didn't even have the decency to hide the evidence. you just threw it in a drawer, hotel, motels. >> oh, ( bleep ). >> you couldn't even pay cash like a normal philanderer. you charged everything! i mean look at this, flowers -- look at all these flowers that you bought for her! >> ifill: that collaboration continued with "heartburn", a film based on ephron's scathing novel about her second failed marriage. in 1989, her screenplay for "when harry met sally" touched a popular chord and brought an oscar nomination. >> what i'm saying is-- and this is not a come on in any way, shape or form-- is that men and women can't be friends, because the sex part always gets in the way. >> that's not true. i have a number of men friends and there's no sex involved. >> no, you don't. >> yes, i do. >> no, you don't. >> yes, i do. you only think you do. >> ifill: ephron was nominated for another screenwriting oscar for "sleepless in seattle," the 1993 film which she wrote and directed. even after being diagnosed with leukemia six years ago, she collaborated with meryl streep once again, directing "julie and julia" in 2009. >> i'm julia child. bon appetit! >> bon appetit! >> ifill: a year later, in the charlie rose interview, ephron said she never stopped challenging herself. >> i think that keeping yourself fresh is a difficult thing in the aging process and finding things that are hard for you is something that you have to do or else you just repeat yourself. >> or else you don't grow. >> yeah. >> ifill: nora ephron died tuesday in manhattan. she was 71 years old. we close with some additional thoughts on norah ef41. charles magraph is a writer at large for the "new york times," former editor of the book review and head of the new yorkir's fiction department wrote an esa on norah's passing today. it seemed in many ways norah ephron had nothing in common with the people who loved her work so much. she was raised in beverly hills, was a creature of the upper west side. what was it about her that people were able to connect? >> first of all, she was funny, and you can't pay enough attention to that. she was honest. she said the things that you weren't supposed to say. she said that old age was not a wonderful growth opportunity. it was often kind of crummy. and i think you also saw in the movies, you saw something that you didn't necessarily see in her writing, which was a kind of sweetness, and maybe even a hint of sentimentality. and she had these things as a person. she was a marvelous friend to a great many people. and i think that readers and people who watched her movies sensed that about her. they kind of felt that they knew her. >> ifill: where did she find that voice? many journalists find it in reporting it out and figuring it out and interviewing other people or did she find hers from within herself? >> well, i guess from within herself. she had it. i mean, she had it from the very beginning. i can remember-- and i wasn't the only one-- back in the late 60s when she had moved from writing for the "new york post" #-r to writing these wonderful, very original essays for "esquire" and "the new yorker" thinking where did this person come from? nobody was writing like that back then. and her writing voice was, in some ways, a kind of distilled version of how she spoke. she was a wonderful conversationalist. aise said before, she told the truth. she said the things you weren't supposed to say and she said them in a disarming way. and even when she wrote profiles of people, she wasn't mean. she was funny and honest. >> ifill: how rare is it in the arts to be able to do all of the things she did? she was an essayist. she was a humorist. she was a playwright, she was obviously a screen writer. she never stopped writing for print. how rare is it that someone does all of those things? >> completely rare. i can't think of anybody hike her. i mean, all writers dream maybe one day, "oh, maybe i'll have a screenplay." she had a bunch. and them she actually became a director. i mean, many of us who knew her upper astonished when that happened. and then it turned out she did it so well. it was as if steeper born to do it. i talked yesterday to mike nichols and he said something interesting. he said he thought norah completely understood the process of film making. she may have already learned that at home from her parents but what made her so good was her people skills. she could build a team. she knew hue to-- how to cajole people and get them through the tough parts. he said these are the skills people don't realize went into the making of a movie and she had those in great abundance. >> ifill: one of the things she liked to tell people is she was sick of appearing on panels about women in films and yet she's one of the rare birds, one of the rare women at her level in the film industry. is that something she just resisted, this notion that she was this breakthrough female? >> yes, i think so. i mean, norah was a-- was a feminist. i think she would say that. early on, she sometimes wrote some funny pieces about feminism. but she was very aware that, as a female in the film business, she was a rarity. and she didn't think that was right, but she also didn't think that she should be stopped. and i think one reason why she became a director was to get more control over her material. she had seen with her parents what happens if you're just a screenwriter, and how hollywood can roll over you. so she became a director and a producer, and she did make fun of panels about women in film. she was very proud of the fact that she was doing this and was so successful at it. >> ifill: i have to ask you on one more question that she would probably hate, which is what is her legacy? as someone who was so much out front doing this kind of work and whoa everyone can recite the words from their favorite norah ephron movies, books, and plays and essays, what do you think she left behind as a legacy to other people who might want to do it or other people who might want to learn from the way she did it? >> i think the greatest legacy may be just her own example. she did it. she got things done. she hated whining and self-pity. she was a great believer in pulling up your socks and getting things done and not letting people tell you, you can't do them. she did them. and i think that anymore may lingert longest. but i think people will continue to watch these movies. i doubt that they'll date ever. and the same thing is true for the many of the essays. >> ifill: maybe that's why we department know about her illness as well. she just decided to put one foot in front of the other and do what she needed to do. >> yes, very few people, even people who knew about her very well, knew about the illness until they began to get called late on monday or yesterday. i talked yesterday to steven spielberg who was very close to norah. they never worked affect but they kind of showed each other their scripts all the time. he did not know until yesterday afternoon. she didn't want people to know. she didn't want to be treated any differently. two weeks ago she was still working on a pilot in her hospital room. >> ifill: and this is the way she wanted to leave. but she left so much behind. charles mcgrath, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> brown: again, the major developments of the day: emergency crews in colorado battled a destructive wildfire that doubled in size overnight and threatened colorado springs, the state's second largest city. the remnants of tropical storm debby moved into the atlantic ocean, leaving major flooding across northern florida. and reports out of congress said house and senate leaders had a tentative deal to hold down student loan interest rates and keep transportation projects funded. on our website, we have your viewer's guide to tomorrow's expected supreme court ruling on >> ifill: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on thursday, we'll look at the supreme court decision on the health care law. i'm gwen ifill major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> this is "bbc world news." funding for this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu, newman's own foundation, and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers work hard to know your business, offering 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